High temperature stress is a major limiting factor for plant growth and crop productivity. Models suggest that global warming has substantial negative effects on the world production of major grains wheat, maize and barley, as well as important dicot plants (Lobell and Field, 2007). Between 1970 and 2007, 78 weather-related disasters with damages equal to or exceeding $1 billion were recorded in the U.S. alone. Among these, at least 12 vents were due to drought and heat waves, totaling $106 billion in estimated damage, with significant losses to agriculture (Ross and Lott, 2003 and source: lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/reports/billion z). Despite the great economic importance of drought and high temperature stress to agriculture, little progress has been made in breeding stress-tolerant cultivars, partly due to the complex nature of these stresses and plant adaptations to such stresses. A major component of heat stress has been
Several members of the plant protein networks in heat stress response, including heat shock proteins (HSPs), heat stress transcription factors (HSFs) and antioxidant enzymes, have been studied using mutants, transgenic lines and transcriptome analyses (Koskull-Doring et al. 2007; Kotak et al. 2007; Mittler, 2005). However, enzymes protecting specific target proteins from oxidative damage have not been investigated for their possible role in stress tolerance.